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The government’s chief investigation into last year’s Deepwater Horizon disaster will not be complete by a July 27 deadline, officials confirmed Friday. The probe by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has already received two extensions, partly because of delays in testing emergency equipment that failed to stop the Gulf oil spill. …

The bill would amend the Death on the High Seas Act and the Jones Act, both of 1920, and the Shipowners Liability Act of 1851 to allow families of those killed during the explosion to sue for loss of care, comfort, companionship and pain and suffering. …

When it comes to energy policy, congressional Democrats and Republicans agree on a lot: High gasoline prices are bad. They pose a serious threat to our fragile economic recovery. And there’s too much demagoguery — and far too little problem-solving — going on in Washington.

They also agree, nearly every podium-hugging, media-blitzing chance they get, that the other side is to blame.

“As is so frequently the case, Congress seems more interested in partisan squabbling than in problem-solving,” says Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. “We have been talking about these issues since the Carter administration; it’s time for something dramatic.”

Remember the famous (or infamous) photo of the CEOs of America’s largest tobacco companies being sworn in as witnesses before a hostile House committee some 18 years ago? Remember the hostile grilling they got from Chairman Henry Waxman and other Democrats? Well, the CEOs of America’s largest oil companies are taking pains to make sure another similar scene doesn’t take place today.

Instead, the executives are set to argue vehemently against proposed tax hikes during today’s Senate Finance Committee hearing. Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson will tell the panel that Democrats are unfairly singling out the firms with a “discriminatory and punitive” plan to eliminate tax credits and deductions used broadly by other industries.

The Obama administration is fighting back against allegations that it is blocking new oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico and is content to rely on crude from the Mideast. AP photoA fisherman …